1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of digital cameras, and especially to a digital camera capable of receiving video input.
2. Description of Related Art
With the progress of digital image technology, the conventional cameras are gradually replaced by digital cameras. The image data captured by a digital camera is generally transferred to a personal computer and other data processing devices for being further processed, stored, or printed. Therefore, by the digitized image-capture function of the digital camera and the data processing ability of the personal computer, the applications of the digital image technology are more and more popular in the daily life. For example, the photographs captured by a digital camera can be stored in a personal computer without using any heavy photograph books. Moreover, the photographs stored in a personal computer can be processed or added with multimedia effect.
Other than receiving a picture from a digital camera, the personal computer can also receive video signals from a TV, a recorder, a CD drive, a DVD drive, and other video signal generating devices for being stored, edited, or being played on a display device, so as to enhance the diversity of multimedia applications.
However, if there is a need to input the picture of a digital camera and the video signals of a video signal generating device to a personal computer, it is necessary to have both a digital camera and a video interface device. This is not only wasted in hardware, but also is inconvenient in the multimedia application since image and video data are necessary to be input from different devices. Therefore, there is a desire to have a novel digital camera, such that image and video data can be input thereto for multimedia application, with only a little hardware resource.
Accordingly, the primary object of the present invention is to provide a digital camera with video input for integrating hardware resources and enabling the application of multimedia to be more convenient.
To achieve the object, the digital camera with video input in accordance with the present invention includes an image sensor, a video signal processing unit, a TV decoder, a scaling unit, a TV interface unit, a compressing and storage unit, and an USB unit. The image sensor is provided for capturing an external image and converting the captured image into R/G/B image signals. The video signal processing unit is provided for receiving the R/G/B image signals generated by the image sensor, and converting the received signals into pixel data having a first format for output. The TV decoder is provided for converting input external analog video signals into pixel data having a second format. The scaling unit is provided for performing aspect ratio processing and zoom/pan function to pixel data. The TV interface unit is provided to convert pixel data having the second format into pixel data having the first format for being selectively output to the scaling unit directly and output to the scaling unit after transferring to the video signal processing unit for performing edge enhancement. The compressing and storage unit is provided for performing compress operation to the pixel data output from the video signal processing unit and the scaling unit. The USB unit is provided for converting pixel data after being compressed into serial data for output.
The various objects and advantages of the present invention will be more readily understood from the following detailed description when reading in conjunction with the appended drawing.